Red Cliffs Of Dawlish

Sunday, 22 January 2017

It seems more accurate to describe our "current democracy" as closer to a "public sounding off" or "letting off steam" as the true type of participation with which people interact with politics. The most recent example is the hyperventilating as above: People resorting to "Displacement Activities":-

Marching up and down

Chanting and engaging in righteous condemning activities

Joining large groups of other such people.

Making a lot of noise and jumping up and down...

The above tweet was an amusing joke I noticed on twitter and makes a useful contrast: That protest may be full of expression and often not very conducive expression, but falling so short of explanation of the situation. In short, people don't seem to hold any bearing of where they are, what they stand for and how they can usefully and effectively engage in politics. What happens? Protest channels this helpless energy and this distraction fills the news-media: It's almost as if the political machinery has a flow chart and this is merely one visible stage of "PROTEST" in a flow chart where people's "Input" is ticked off - as above, the above tweeter demonstrates perfectly the true utility of protest compared to expectations of participation. From this stage in the flow chart politics swiftly moves on - away from the useless people stage.

Assuming the above is very quick and general description, then we could consider what the next step in such a flow diagram might be?

The above exchange is in fact a perfect example of the implications of "Powerless Protest" to elaborate on:-

John Finn's understanding is based on an assumption he reveals in his subsequent response, but first his communication shows a couple of problems:-

He's expressing an opinion without checking his own state of knowledge: "Have you actually read FLEXCIT?" And that itself is just the beginning of that journey.

He sprinkles politeness and "friendliness" as substitute for the above in his communication.

It's a mistake I've unfortunately made so many times: It's a form of self-conceit that is very hard to acknowledge but if you are going to criticize then you really have to be able and competent in your ability to marshal your arguments or send them to their massacre! And one needs a lot of self-sincerity in that case to cope...

The assumption is laid bare here: "You only have an opinion and no say in strategy." This really is a couple of things:-

Applicable in general to everyone concerning moving politics onto the next stage away from people - leaving people with powerless protest and possibly even encourage to be distracted in this displacement type of activity mistaking it for real political action that is real because it's effective.

Dr. North provides his own answer below. But I'd suggest this is mixing up arguments: It veers away from explanation of arguments which is exactly what FLEXCIT does do (as Dr. North mentions examples of below). It literally is accepting that argument explanation must be trumped by those in power who do have a say on strategy!!!

This is a remarkable claim and I suspect a claim that perhaps most people blindly, mutely and hence in behaviour STUPIDLY accept... something along the lines of "that's the way the world works". This is a sort of "abbatoir of democracy":-

Here to point out the correct made by Dr. North's response, pointing out how much FLEXCIT asserts the "Political Context" not a "vacuum" unlike the IEA Brexit Competition papers (!). But also notice:-

Coherent Exit: An argument that is built up from beginning to end logically that increases explanation value if used and hence if used...

Rational Negotiation - again insistence to avoid basing arguments on lies, on games such as "Brinkmanship" (see historic errors that manifest from this) etc.

There is also another response: Without following these principles in democracy we do end up with an alternative result: Powerless Protest, Pointless Voting in both of the pictures above: Twitter and the Sheep pictures.

"Our
objective is to recover power. Our focus is on the acquisition of
power. And once we ourselves, the people, hold the power, we can then
attend to the many problems and injustices that plague modern society.
But without power, there is only protest – and we achieve nothing of any
lasting value."

"One consequence of
Germany losing the Second World War was that the success or state to the Third
Reich had imposed upon it a new constitution, in which British legal experts
had a part to play. It is thus highly
significant that Article 20 of that constitution (the Basic Law) declares that
all state authority comes from the people. Although not specifically stated,
the effect of this was to recognise that the German people are sovereign.

Despite the
British effectively bequeathing this principle to a nation it had a hand
in
vanquishing, it does not apply to the people of the United Kingdom.
Instead, we have the doctrine of
“Parliamentary sovereignty”. Parliament is the supreme legal authority
in the
UK, which can create or end any law. Generally, the courts cannot
overrule its
legislation and no Parliament can pass laws that future

Parliaments
cannot change. Parliamentary sovereignty, says the Parliamentary
website, is the most important part of the UK constitution.

We believe this should change, not least because, in the name of parliamentary
sovereignty, our MPs have a licence to ignore the wishes of the people and to
hand power to bodies such as the European Union. This has led to a situation
where UK courts recognise the supremancy of EU law in preference to our own,
and can strike down laws made by Parliament.

However, we do not believe that we should make a statement along the lines
of the German constitution, declaring the source of power. What can be made can
be unmade. What can be granted can be
rescinded. Instead, we take our guidance
from the United States constitution, which starts with the words: “We the
people … ”. In so doing, it signifies that the fount of all political power
stems from the people, but there is no declaration of sovereignty as such.
Sovereignty is regarded as inalienable. Because of that, it cannot be taken
away by any body, governmental or otherwise."

If we can start seeing how people actually integrate into politics currently, we might also begin to think ahead a bit further imagining our political flow chart: What is the next step on that?

Well, again, I think you can spot this for yourself if you pay close attention: One example on The Andrew Marr Show today is the fact that Mrs. May's incoherence in her speech allows other politicians their own fiefdoms from which to operate from such as the previously, heavily discredited Nick Clegg, who now suddenly appears to be a politician of wise caution and sensible suggestions. In fact these politicians manufacture their own almost inscrutable dynamics to people where so much is veiled and muddied, that ensures their arguments always appear to be FROM THE SOURCE OF POWER (which is not the people) to which people cannot possibly fathom... "experts" or "authorities" or "chiefs" or "celebrities" even too.

They are imposters on account of from first principles derived above in The Harrogate Agenda (again John Finn above is probably highly representative of most people falling under the opposite delusion created by these "authorities") but also on performance which betrays that they too are just as ignorant as most "ordinary voters" are and are made to feel by their useless demonstrations and protests. By dint of their superior prestige in society they act more coolly and appear thus ever more superior - the trappings of power.

Let's try and therefore combine all the thoughts and ideas above and make a useful prediction: What the hell will happen with Brexit given all the noise?

If we consider the above, it seems likely that the politicians are much more involved in allowing people to demonstrate and protest mistaking this as democracy before they themselves then use various political fudges to ascertain how much political power they really are in control of. Thus the options may present themselves if we use this as our guide:-

the EFTA/EEA option and it's auxillery options as per FLEXCIT is too clearly too rational and visible to be ostensibly chosen. The power dynamic would be too exposed and out of control by the politicians in the UK and EU members.

If we had voted Remain however the other problem would have been how to deal with the UK while the rest of the EU engage in a New Treaty. Again the power dynamic under stress.

Attenuating out Brexit into fudged language and backroom deals and popular sounding nostrums and generally blurring and blending it's meanings as far away from coherence as possible and closer towards, "Who said what" and hence how many prestigious consensus can be sold to peoples across Europe, then I think we'll see a variation on a New Treaty and some renamed Association Membership balancing the Non-EUROS with the EUROS members.

Dr. North has already warned this is exactly what you'd expect from Mrs. May stupid speech (again incoherent but people accepting superior opinion instead of rational coherent argument + being able to protest too and then add on further bullshit eg brinkmanship sounding ever-so clever); this is nothing new to be said.

But what I believe I have achieved, far from perfectly, is link this expected result with the roots of failure of democracy and power: As again already pointed out with people failing to understand the true nature of the Brexit vote previously: It was always a test of people to rise above themselves and be worthy of living and running a real democracy of relations between each other: Which they failed even at the same time as apparently winning against the Establishment. Cue the politicians reassert their former roles once again with zero opposition permissible.

That Twitter comparison above is food for thought: The inchoate animal-like anger-fear mixture at a perceived threat to the self = probably most voters?

Under the wave of superficial niceties, however, something harder came to light at the front of the lectern at the Lancaster House. The stone woman, May. If the rest of Europe were not to go with it and even punish Great Britain during the Brexit negotiations, the government said, then this had consequences for all. This was not a question of reconciliation, but a catalog of demands with a pinch of threat. Many of her sentences began with: I want."

I made my opinion very clear about how Brexit negotiations should (and probably will) begin in the previous blog whatever "conflagration of words" is heaped onto the "bonfire of vanities", this Fahrenheit 451. I notice two former Leave Alliance bloggers are (gleefully) joining in concerning FLEXCIT being thrown on too: Flexcit is dead & Flexit is dead. Is FLEXCIT a straw dog?

But this blog is a subject about Mrs. May and her value as a "LEADER". Her speech as the Germans are able to easily deconstruct shows a leader of this type:-

1. Style over substance
2. More concerned about impression with others than a centred self.
3. "I want, I want, I want," like the cries of a baby.
4. Someone who speaks a lot (of adjectives) instead of acting decisively.

In all the maelstrom and firestorm of the speech, created by so many stupid writers, none of them can hide the above results from Mrs. May speech that reveal what kind of leader she is for Brexit: A cowardly politician who's childish communication is the only real source of danger to what otherwise is a complex web of the networks and relationships between people in the EU and out of the EU.

For example, how do the Germans see this speech and this leader? As above. I have limited experience of Germans, except a number of flatmates I've lived with; three or four such people, who have been excellent people with very high standards. In particular my last German flatmate. So how about in a speech as a great leader considering the "other" people on the other side of the deal as part of the speech? I think that would be great leadership and example of the people of the UK, being represented to others by Mrs. May - which is what she's really doing ultimately as Prime Minister. But instead: These "cheap parlour games".

Monday, 16 January 2017

I have not found the current news-media very interesting for the last few months concerning Brexit. This statement has been made frequently and there's a couple of distinctions to make about it.

First, it needs to be repeated because the quality lacking in the news-media needs to be made more visible and more audible to more people. Secondly, however, repeating it is not the solution. Investigating why the news-media should matter at all is worth thinking about. Here, the little formula can be applied:-

(1) New(s) → Exciting → Interesting?

It's clear that something new grabs our attention. Cats make perfect test subject on this, whenever I let one into my room it likes to investigate new objects or objects in new positions from the previous visit (I'm time-sharing my room with these nocturnal creatures!). Actually, instead of paying any attention to the British News-Media, which is so hopeless, it's better to revisit for example The Great Deception, and the current page I'm on, p.358 New Edition (Referendum edition) concerning how so much legislation passed through so many thousands of various bodies not actually a part of the EU itself. This rings true today, but is updated in FLEXCIT as part of the framing against "globalization" progressing the "story" further from the original framing of how the EU manages to be designed to work through current institutions as per The Great Deception story
in the early 2000's.

What is new may likely be the least interesting thing, but it seems exciting and hence sells "news"...

Hence, it's with a little pleasure to investigate a German news ource and spurn the British News-Media instead as worthless on reporting of Philip Hammond, our present Chancellor:-

They, too need the "new" to be "exciting" with a craptastic title. As for the content of the interview, it's not much better, but just to enjoy avoiding the worthless British news-media and perhaps indicate even crap German news is better than our crap British news-media!

(2) Travel → Jobs → Immigration → British Vote

This line is taking a simple everyday concept people can all grasp such as travelling from country to country and productively in the case of jobs and work and then setting it in contention with what apparently British people opposed in their vote: Migration.

Both these tracks then crash headlong into "Immigration", according to the progress of questioning by the German interviewer. Of course this problem then explicates apparently the nature of the Political Problem that the UK and Germany now face with each other:

(4) A problem in their successful working relationship

What I find very stupid, is the emphasis on "threat" in the title, which echoes most of the recent very stupid New-Media titles, foremost amongst them the British News-Media , to check with google news briefly:-

UK Set to Choose Sharp Break From European Union (New York Times)

The political gulf over Brexit is growing at an alarming rate (Financial Times)

If the City vs Brussels is like a game of Jenga, it's possible both sides could lose (Guardian)

Whether she's pursuing a hard Brexit or not, Theresa May needs to stop accusing us all of 'subverting democracy' (Independent)

Even from this arbitrary sample, the language has significantly changed (thank the lord) from conflating Europe =/= EU! or EU =/= Single Market (not to mention Customs Union vs Customs Cooperation or Internal Market (acquis communautaire) vs European Economic Area (acquis applicable to EEA Treaty). Thanks to Lost Leonardo for pointing this subtle yet essential shift out in the legacy news-media.

UK/US are brought up due to Brexit/Trump presumably but Hammond compares the relationship difference in terms of:-

(5) UK → US = Security(6) UK → EU = Economic

With the caveat that the UK is in the EU Economic sphere but at the US end of the spectrum within that sphere. Here the pressures on relationships are again in the abstract: Forces, Uncertainty, Time impacting negatively on relationships. There's a final bone thrown to the "young": It's true this category (nebulous at best) raises images of renewal, the future, energy and growth. But the young are predominantly far from political genius' and this again is something the "news" in general creates aberrations of: "The cult of the young". In fact "Fake News" is a theme that I spotted by Sophie Ridge in a newspaper article on the 18th November, 2016:-

"How revealing of the desperate muddle our Brexit debate has got into were all those headlines last week over the interview between Theresa May and Sophy Ridge of Sky News. Mrs May, they told us, wants us to “leave the single market”, triggering a further costly slump in the value of the pound. It is true that Ms Ridge repeatedly asked Mrs May whether we were going to leave the single market.

But what Mrs May actually replied, as several times before, was that she wants us to remain “within” the single market. If Ms Ridge had been more on the ball, she would have pounced on this to ask how, outside the EU, such a thing is possible. She could have pointed out (as I have been consistently doing here) that there is only one conceivable way in which, on leaving the EU, we could still remain “within” the single market."

Again to extend ideas, if "Fake News" how about "Fake People" also? What about "Fake Democracy" run by "Fake People" who also seem very close to "Fake News" which then goes on about complaining about "Fake News" but not "Fake Democracy"?

"One of the oddest things I've been finding in my background research on the potential effects of a "walk away" from the Article 50 negotiations, leaving us relying solely on WTO rules, is how little information or discussion there is on the potential consequences.

There is an endless procession of people saying we should "just leave" and take up the WTO option – the latest beingBill Clarkein the letters column ofThe Sunday Telegraph, who says there is no need to reach agreement with the 27 EU Member States. But, like the idiot Goodman inConservative Home, it is perilously clear that Clarke and most of the others advocating a "walk away" can have no idea of what this entails.These people, it would seem, not only want us to jump off the edge of a cliff, they want us to do it blindfold and in the dark, mentored by people who are unable to tell us whether the ledge gives way to a six-inch or thousand-foot fall. And merely to ask is to be condemned for making things needlessly complicated."

Equally, there's many groups that are fake. Brexit is not about finding a "check-mate" solution as above, but about acquiring "Just enough territory" or area control as this particular game of Go requires for, to quote FLEXCIT:-

"Leaving the EU will have significant geopolitical and economic advantages. But we believe it is unrealistic to expect a clean break, immediately unravelling forty-three years of integration in a single step. Therefore, we have set out a process of phased separation and recovery.

In all, we identify six phases. The first deals with the legal process ofwithdrawing from the EU, with the aim of concluding an agreement within the initial two year period allowed in the Article 50 negotiations. In this, we seek continued participation in the EU's Single Market."

In the opening of the game, players usually play in the corners of the board first, as the presence of two edges makes it easier for them to surround territory and establish their stones.After the corners, focus moves to the sides, where there is still one edge to support a player's stones. Opening moves are generally on the third and fourth line from the edge, with occasional moves on the second and fifth lines. In general, stones on the third line offer stability and are good defensive moves, whereas stones on the fourth line influence more of the board and are good attacking moves. The opening is the most difficult part of the game for professional players and takes a disproportionate amount of the playing time. "

Sunday, 8 January 2017

Personally, I've always had an inkling that "flying cars" were no more than "Pegasus"; that is to say combining two different elements of imagination to create a new combination eg "Horse + Bird Wings" = Flying Horse (or even Angel being a similar combination (Human + Bird Wings). Or "Car + Airplane wings" = "Flying car". I don't think I've held a deep expectation of seeing futuristic flying cars which is a staple of some science fiction visions of the future. Apparently many people, by contrast did expect such things, particularly when growing up in the 50's and 60's?

Instead, in some other science fiction visions, the emphasis was not so much on new-fangled objects as the trends and patterns of various forces that shape our societies such as economics and supply chains. These stories make some interesting visions of the conflict in human behaviour interacting within these forces. But that's a digression.

The vision of the above "flying car" super-imposed on "Budget Airlines" is to make a quick and simple illustration: A lot of the demands being placed upon "What sort of Brexit" are entirely likely to draw from the same error process:-

1. Take current object.
2. Search for another current object
3. Create desirable combination.
4. Make plans based on what is now leading to what will be.

Voilà "There's my Brexit plan, the best that money and the top brains can buy!

What actually happened between 50's/60's eventually led to what we're all so familiar with today: Budget Airlines - dozens a and dozens of them! Those invisible forces at work in economics and technology and the scale and complexity and duration, all orders of magnitude and interaction which are far more complex than the simple "formula" used above: 4 steps and one giant leap and voilà!!

I think the above illustration provides all the pause for thought necessary when considering the quality of output produced by so many morons on Brexit. As to why they should produce such dross in such quantity and in such majority of numbers on the one hand the bubble effect maybe but more to the point, "The Appearance of Power" dominates the creation of ideas for the arguments about Brexit:-

1. Domination of the argument by the Establishment (Bubble Effect). 100 different voices all end up sounding like 1 opinion (Flying Cars)
2. Domineering of relationships by the Establishment (Moral Assumptions). This displaces the complexity of the arguments (Budget Airlines) ie the technical understanding of those complex and invisible forces at scales not intuitive to our minds without deep learning and understanding of knowledge domains.

Both Dr. North (http://eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86335) and Pete North (http://peterjnorth.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/brexit-into-abyss.html) have done heroic attempts to try to point out this difference, consistently only for shallow commentators to consistently do the very thing they've been pointed out as doing: "Where's my flying car?"

It's the sort of thing I first was drawn to reading Christopher Booker's ability to remain curiously curious about "accepted wisdom"/received nostrums and other such habits of thought in both groups and individuals:-